Ipswich ceramic village displayed for all

By Evan RocciaIpswich@wickedlocal.com

Thursday

Dec 14, 2017 at 2:47 PMDec 20, 2017 at 11:11 AM

The Christmas season brings out a unique sense of joy and wonder in families who celebrate it -- from stories of kids counting down the hours until Santa arrives, to parents doing everything they can to keep a smile on their children’s faces.

Paul Morin is such a father.

Morin decorated his house, for his children, and eventually his Christmas village was born. The village started out small, but as time went on it got larger and larger until, as Morin put it, it grew into a “metropolis.” Morin’s goal was to pass down his Christmas “metropolis” so his grandchildren could enjoy it as much as their parents did when they were younger.

Two years ago, Morin finally passed his collection on to his daughter, Pam Simpson, who shares it with the assisted living facility, the Residence at Riverbend on County Road, and with the general public.

“I asked for it,” Simpson said. “It was really fun to go there for Christmas and have it so decorated and my dad became a snowbird a couple of years ago and kind of stopped putting the village out because it was so much work to put it up and then to take it down.”

Today the collection includes over 1,000 ceramic pieces, by Simpson’s estimate, including trees and people, and spans two 8-feet x 10-feet tables and bins below the tables to extend the display.

The display includes a fishing village, a farm and a ski village, with homes and buildings that all light up.

“We’ve never counted it all,” Simpson said. “It’s a blend of different brands. We try to pair things.”

So, each piece to its appropriate village.

Seeing that her father had stopped setting the whole display up, Simpson asked him to carry on the tradition. Unlike her three siblings, because she is the executive director of the Residence of Riverbed, she has the space to display the whole Christmas village.

The village represents not only Morin’s unique family and friends, but also a community similar to Ipswich itself. The collection has businesses, parks, houses and even people that are all unique, with their own back stories. Simpson said her father would add little things each year that represented her family and her father’s friends, which led to an amazingly detailed and meaningful display.

“The residence love it,” Simpson said. “It’s nostalgic for them, too. I feel like this is something that people of that generation all kind of did, not on this scale, so this is really nice way to have it displayed and bring back memories, too.”